With loss of top guns, 'SNL' at crossroads

Sunday

For almost four decades, Saturday Night Live has displayed a Madonna-like gift for reinvention - defying critics who, every five years or so, question its relevance in a changing culture.

For almost four decades, Saturday Night Live has displayed a Madonna-like gift for reinvention - defying critics who, every five years or so, question its relevance in a changing culture. The likes of Chevy Chase, Will Ferrell and Amy Poehler have come and gone, but SNL has endured.

This year, the sketch-comedy show faces one of the most significant talent exoduses in its history.Perennial stars Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig have moved on.Jason Sudeikis is likely to follow.And, after 11 years, head writer and "Weekend Update" anchorman Seth Meyers seems ready for another challenge, although he denies that he will land in daytime on Live! With Kelly.

Collectively, the exits could represent the greatest challenge that the comedic institution has tackled since the high-profile departures of Phil Hartman, Mike Myers and Adam Sandler in the mid-1990s. Growing pains have certainly affected SNL - and its creator, Lorne Michaels - before. Yet the latest changing of the guard comes at a particularly awkward time: NBC, which has languished near the bottom of the broadcast-network ratings since 2004, doesn't want to be worrying about the status of SNL.

" SNL has to perform at a certain level," says Brian Steinberg, TV editor of Advertising Age. "NBC can't afford to have any cracks in the pillar."

Michaels, along with NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt, declined to comment.

According to NBC spokesman Tom Bierbaum, the show has continued to hold its own.SNL ratings have held steady at an average of 7 million viewers since 2004, except during the abbreviated 2007-08 season. During the past year, the show averaged about 7.1 million viewers - down just a hair from 7.2 million the previous season - or double the usual audience for The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

Not bad for a show about to turn 37.

SNL also performs well among the coveted 18-to-49 demographic - especially young men. Still, with a large ensemble cast, an even bigger crew, and wardrobe and costume expenditures that would make J.Lo blanch, SNL is by no means a low-budget production. According to a source close to the show, it costs NBC about $3 million to make a single episode, a budget comparable to that of an hourlong network drama.

Although it is highly unlikely that SNL would lower the boom on the show while Michaels is still involved, budget cuts are not unprecedented. In 2006, he axed five cast members under pressure from the network to cut costs.

Whatever the investment, it is worth it, according to TV analyst Shari Anne Brill:"There are people who came into SNL who don't watch anything else on NBC. They need to remind people that they have shows on the rest of the week between 8 and 11."

James Andrew Miller, co-author of Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live, acknowledges that the show is at a crossroads. In particular, he calls Wiig's farewell "one of the most emotional departures in the history of the show." He cites her ability to portray a wide range of characters - not just the wacky ones, such as Target Lady.

"There are dozens of performers who were great. They couldn't pick up the show and carry it on their back the way she did," Miller says. "Her departure is not to be taken lightly."

But others see a silver lining in the cast changes."There was some fatigue with Kristen Wiig's characters," argues Adam Frucci, editor of the comedy website Splitsider. "The same people who are saying the show can't survive without her were complaining about the Target Lady having her 15th sketch."

Ryan McGee, a critic who writes about SNL for HitFix.com, agrees. "There's a really good chance for the show to blossom if they can give more screen time to other women, like Vanessa Bayer and Nasim Pedrad," two talented but underused performers.

Likewise, Sudeikis' absence could mean more airtime for Taran Killam, who is widely viewed as the show's next breakout star. In the past, big cast departures have cleared the way for new talents to emerge; think of Will Ferrell, who joined the show at a low point in 1995.

The show's two-tiered cast also works as a kind of extended audition: Most new cast members start out as featured players and are upgraded to repertory status once they've proved themselves. The bottom rung of the SNL cast has proved to be a creative staging area for major stars, including Jimmy Fallon, Eddie Murphy and Poehler, as well as Samberg, Sudeikis and Wiig.

"This is what Lorne does: He replaces people; he develops talent. It speaks more to his genius than just having the same cast come back year after year," Miller says. "There's a part of him that likes proving people wrong. How many times have we heard 'Dead from New York'? It's the stupidest joke in television. There could be a nuclear war, the cockroaches would be walking around, and SNL would still be on the air."

Miller also claims that the show's ratings from week to week have more to do with the musical guest and host than with the quality of the individual sketches. The evidence bears out his thesis: This season's second-most-watched episode, hosted by embattled starlet Lindsay Lohan, was also one of its most poorly received.

If SNL is missing anyone this fall, it's likely to be Sarah Palin. Its ratings tend to peak in election years - viewership hit a recent high of 7.6 million in 2008, thanks to the gaffe-prone governor and Tina Fey's uncanny resemblance to her - but the election cycle offers two candidates who are unusually impervious to mockery. Fred Armisen's take on President Barack Obama, though technically proficient, has never reached the transcendent levels of past presidential impersonations, such as Phil Hartman's burger-scarfing Bill Clinton or Will Ferrell's hapless George W. Bush - and, without Sudeikis, the show would have to find a new Mitt Romney.

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